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Donald Trump 2018 budget could turn off his voters and sink his approval rating
Only an elitist billionaire could champion a budget so devoid of compassion and genuine concern for 99% of his constituency.May 24, 2017
The best way to think about the fiscal 2018 budget released by the White House is as a Trump political campaign rally on paper. The budget was clearly developed to make a statement to President Trump’s base of voters in the hope that they will see it as him keeping his campaign promises. Every president’s budget is at least partly a political document, so that fact that Trump tries to make a strong ideological statement with his not only isn’t a surprise, it should have been anticipated. The president’s budget is supposed to be a plan for governing as well as a political campaign cheer, and that’s where the Trump 2018 completely fails. First, the Trump budget projects steadily reduced deficits over the next 10 years that are based on fantasy and prayers rather than solid economics. Second, the Trump budget includes a veritable witches’ brew of gimmicks that, while used before, haven’t been used together since Ronald Reagan was president and David Stockman had to resort to budget slight-of-hand to project a declining deficit. Third, the Trump 2018 budget proposes spending cuts that Congress — Republicans and Democrats — are virtually certain to reject out of hand. This includes cuts in Social Security Disability and farm subsidies, plus over $600 billion in Medicaid reductions over 10 years on top of the $880 billion in cuts the House passed several weeks ago in the American Health Care Act.
So while it might work as a campaign event, the Trump 2018 budget flops big time as a real policy proposal and practical guide for Congress. Its economics are pie-in-the-sky, its numbers are speculative at best and its spending cut proposals are unlikely to ever be considered seriously. Although the administration will try to emphasize the big picture proposals — the wall, the Pentagon, the projected surplus — many of the individual plans like the cuts in Medicaid and the Social Security Disability program break promises the president made during the campaign. Many of the smaller Trump-proposed spending cuts will be felt by his supporters as well, and congressional Democrats are certain to make political life miserable for any Republicans who support them. It didn’t take long for the Trump 2018 budget to disappear inside the beltway. Less than two days after the details were released, congressional Republicans had all but stopped talking about it. With the president overseas and not part of the rollout, and no one but Mulvaney promoting it, the budget seemed destined to vanish by the end of the week. That will make the Trump 2018 budget one of the biggest and most rapid failures in recent American history.